Page:The Anarchists - A Picture of Civilization at the Close of the Nineteenth Century.djvu/12

viii into tatters this work, too, without having understood it. Me their blows will not strike.

London and the events of the fall of 1887 have served me as the background for my picture.

When in the beginning of the following year I once more returned to the scene for a few weeks, principally to complete my East End studies, I did not dream that the very section which I had selected for more detailed description would soon thereafter be in everybody's mouth in consequence of the murders of "Jack the Ripper."

I did not finish the chapter on Chicago without first examining the big picture-book for grown-up children by which the police captain, Michael Schaack, has since attempted to justify the infamous murder committed by his government: "Anarchy and Anarchists" (Chicago, 1889). It is nothing more than a—not unimportant—document of stupid brutality as well as inordinate vanity.

The names of living people have been omitted by me in every case with deliberate intent; nevertheless the initiated will almost always recognize without difficulty the features that have served me as models.

A space of three years has elapsed between the writing of the first chapter and the last. Ever newly rising doubts compelled me again and again, often for a long period, to interrupt the work. Perhaps I began it too soon; I do not finish it too late.

Not every phase of the question could I treat